<p>The trees around our house were TP’d a couple of times in early November of various years for both my S and D when they went downstate in their sport. The kids who did it called me ahead of time to make sure we wouldn’t mind. It always rained within a few days, and the TP mostly disappeared on its own. </p>
<p>It was a kind of honor, and my kids were happy about it. I never thought about the possibility of someone mistaking the kids for intruders. Don’t think that could happen around here.</p>
<p>One time a girl who was TPing for another sport was bumped by a passing car – no bad damage, but an unpleasant consequence nonetheless.</p>
<p>Forking is when the kids stick plastic forks into your yard, tines down. Lots and lots of plastic forks into your yard…Chalking when the kids write in chalk all over your driveway (and in our case, into the street). Chalking done by D’s friends. The people who TPed us also forked us.</p>
<p>Haha, I’ve never heard of forking either, but I’ m sure is not fun to clean up! Besides the usual TP fun here, kids “wrap” cars in Saran wrap. I’ve only seen it once, D and teammates did it to a coaches car during end of season banquet. I can only imagine how long it took her to unwrap it just to get home!</p>
<p>In the area I grew up in, TPing was primarily a Mischief Night stunt. No one got that upset over it. I also think it’s harmless even by today’s strict standards. Gosh, we’ve taken all the fun out of childhood. Every spring kids used to paint their graduation year on the town water tower, they’d would write our school’s name on the opponents football field before the Thanksgiving or Homecoming games, and would steal the other team’s mascot (a live animal usually). To my knowledge, no one ever got charged with a crime! Now, a 6 year old boy kisses a little girl and it’s sexual harassment, he plays Cowboys and Indians and it’s a hate crime, and gets angry and says “I’m going to get you!” and he’s making terroristic threats. It’s really too much.</p>
<p>TPing doesn’t bother me–the egging is awful. My boys have heard me tell stories of TP-ing in high school, and are DYING to do it, as something their mom did that was REALLY out there. (Little do they know…) The rule in my house was then, and is now: If our house gets TP’d, the kids clean it up. And if you TP, you will almost surely be TP’d against.</p>
<p>I can’t even believe I just typed that sentence…</p>
<p>There was a terribly sad story in the Atlanta area a few years ago regarding 4 girls involved in TP-ing a house. Apparently, they fled the scene in their car, with the owner chasing after them in his. There was a horrific accident and 3 of the 4 girls died.</p>
<p>The moral of the story is that although TPing can itself be harmless, the tangential consequences can be anything but. You rely on luck to assume your own TP adventure will not suffer consequences that you will regret.</p>
<p>After sharing this news with my kids, I asked them to please stay away from participating in these activities. (It worked, mostly.)</p>
<p>Having two Ds who played multiple sports we have been TPed numerous times. Our house and heavily wooded yard has been TPed, yard forked, diapers on roof, rubber bands in driveway, shredded paper in driveway and yard, car saran wrapped, fishing line strung through yard. I am glad D2 is a senior and this activity will cease soon! D’s have to do all the clean up. Mostly the team members will come over and help clean. There has never been any damage to the hundreds of plants I have or to the house.</p>
<p>TPing strangers’ property is bad…plainly the case in the Michigan OP’s story. Egging, also bad.</p>
<p>But, the type of TPing other posters talked about–the sports, friend, celebratory stuff–is harmless fun. Yes, it’s a mess, but big deal. </p>
<p>Kids in the theater program at our local high school started a TP-esque activity a few years ago they called “couching.” They’d find a couch someone had abandoned/left in the front of their house for pick-up and deposit it on the front lawn of a friend’s house in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’ll get more creative and a little living room scene will be set up on the lawn. The furniture gets passed around from couched house to couched house. It’s kind of an honor to get couched.</p>
<p>Egging is terrible. Some young idiots egged our house a few weeks ago while we were out of town. By the time we got back, it was permanent. Now our house will have to be painted and we just flat don’t have the money right now. I wonder how those kids would feel if they knew I’ll have to make a decision between my house being hideous and my children having Christmas presents :-(</p>
<p>When my son was in high school there was an unofficial but recognized by the schools spirit “club” called “Roar” that consisted of boys from his all boys schools and girls from their sister all girls school.</p>
<p>During either his freshman or sophomore year, Roar was in the process of TPing someones house when the owner came out, also with a shotgun in hand, thinking that someone was up to something far more nefarious than what was actually about to take place.</p>
<p>Fortunately nothing bad happened that night other than some really scared kids. The end result was that the Headmaster and Headmistress of the two schools got together and terminated the recognition/ existence of Roar and banned any Roar-like activities with the threat of suspension and expulsion.</p>
<p>RE: post # 7 – D is at Wake Forest, so we know all about TPing the Quad. When WFU won the ACC Championship 2 years ago, she sent photos of the Quad. Honestly, there must not have a single roll of TP left anywhere in the area! Even better, the kids at the Wake Forest House in London ran out to TP the couple trees in the yard – much to the utter bewilderment of their British neighbors.</p>
<p>I’m so excited about the “couching” I have many ideas swirling around my head…50th birthdays, anniversaries…I’m tired of 'flocking" with pink flamingos…</p>
<p>My parents’ neighborhood used to have 4 pink flamingos that “migrated” from house to house… sometimes they had decorative Christmas hats and bows… once my parents put a little plastic fence around them to “keep them penned in” the neighbor’s yard, only the neighbor reported that the fence “mysteriously” broke and the flamingos “escaped.”</p>
<p>In a town near us, a group purchased 100 pink flamingoes as a fundraiser. They’d plant them on people’s yards in the middle of the night with a note - if you donate to our organization, we’ll come pick the flamingoes up. I don’t think there was a minimum donation, but the more you donated the faster the flamingoes would be removed. They didn’t do it to strangers, of course. I thought it was hysterical, but apparently in this wealthy and snobbish town some people thought it was “tacky” and wanted it stopped. Guess they couldn’t stand the thought of someone thinking their street had bad taste if their neighbor had 100 pink flamingoes in their yard for a few days…</p>